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Thursday, January 15, 2015

Getting Organized. Avoid the Overload

Recently I was having a rather intense conversation with a few colleagues about the amount if information we are each asked to process on any given day. Before I go any farther, let me emphasize it was a very collaborative and positive part of our day.

Each day we have a list of tasks to complete. It doesn't matter who we are or what we do. If we get out of bed and head into an office, school building or job site, we have plenty to keep us busy. In order to complete the day worth of work, there is going to be a multitude of opportunities to offer direction, guidance or even an opinion on how exactly that work should be accomplished.

In today's world we all know that the information comes from a variety of sources. Email, the internet, texts, phone calls and the office door will each be a part of the daily routine. There will not be one minute of any day that there is not information coming toward you, at you and in front of you. We sit at computers, have phones on our hips and we are always a click away.

Therefore, we have to find a way to maintain that information and organize it so that we can ensure we are being most productive. It is essential, if we want to find success, to develop a system to make sure that the information coming in is sorted, filed and becomes a part of our success.

The suggestions are simple, following through on staying organized, not so much. Personally, I like the list method. Archaic at that, it works for me. And now, we can keep electronic lists through all sorts of apps like Evernote and Dropbox. However, don't feel like you need to abandon all the old methods, for some, a pen and post-it works like a charm. And that works too.

If you are the type of person that will most likely head to your smartphone to document thoughts, meetings and must-do's, here are some great suggestions (which many already use) from Appdevice.com to get you started:

For the fifty minutes or so that we had time to converse, I most likely gained hundreds of minutes back in the days, weeks and months ahead with our brainstormed solutions. Taking the minutes on the front end to stay on top of work is essential to maintain a feeling of not being overwhelmed on the back end of the day. Getting organized with all of the information of any given day is essential.

Make sure to visit AppAdvice for a complete list of Apps for getting organized.